Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin: Tad Hills

Book: Duck & Goose Find a Pumpkin
Author: Tad Hills (@TadHills)
Pages: 22
Age Range: 2 and up 

We love Tad Hills' Duck and Goose in our house (I even recommended this series as a "new classic" for Parenting Magazine"). Baby Bookworm and I were both delighted when the lovely oversized board book Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin appeared on our doorstep. 

The Duck and Goose books are suitable for the youngest of lap readers, with minimal text and a sprinkling of familiar characters. In Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin, the two friends are envious when their companion Thistle walks by carrying a pumpkin. They decide to get one of their own. Not being the brightest birds in the nest, they look in all sorts of ridiculous places, like the top of a tree stump or below the surface of the water in a marsh. They are dumbfounded, but pleased, when they learn that is such a thing as a pumpkin patch. And everything ends happily. 

Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin is a celebration of fall and the outdoors. There are pumpkins and leaf piles and apple trees. Hills uses glowing fall colors and a cool light blue sky to add to the book's crisp fall feeling. The characters themselves are rendered as usual, of course, a fun-loving, not-so -sharp twosome. 

The funniest page, the one that makes 2-year-old Baby Bookworm laugh out loud, is near the end. Thistle says "Have you tried the pumpkin patch?". Duck and Goose look at each other, wide-eyed, and ask "The what?". The illustration in which they look for their pumpkin under the water is also pretty entertaining. 

The text of Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin is well-suited to reading aloud with a toddler. There are a whole series of page spreads in which, on the left hand side of the page, one of the friends asks something like: "Is our pumpkin in the log, Goose?". Then the other looks, and answers "No." Baby Bookworm, naturally, likes to chime in with the "No" text herself. I think it makes her feel smart, knowing what to say next. 

Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin is further proof that Tad Hills understands kids. A perfect fall read for toddlers!  

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade
Publication Date: July 10, 2012
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher

© 2012 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).